“Armand must’ve figured it out. He tried to get Ikaat to make a run for it when Dalmatovis attacked. But they got separated and Barrett ended up with him. Those were your goons who caught up with Barrett, weren’t they? You had him beaten and left for dead—”
“No, truly—”
“—when you didn’t find out what you wanted to know from him, you drugged me—”
“Darling, listen—”
“—and when all was said and done, you watched me board a plane you knew would crash at sea.”
That shut him up.
I reached for my car door.
Philip slammed it shut with the slap of his palm. “I was assigned to assist with the American plot to intercept a defecting physicist, yes. And why not? Whilst in university, I spent plenty of time in America, as you are well aware. Naturally, my government gave the job to me. Naturally, I saw an additional opportunity. You can’t possibly blame me for that.”
“Can I blame you for showing up at Rabbit’s Revenge? And in the New Mexico desert, too? Everywhere I went, it’s like you had a road map, Philip. And I think I know why.”
I slipped a hand into the pocket of my raincoat, withdrew my phone in its beautiful, handcrafted case.
I said, “You wanted to meet your government’s expectations. Hell, you wanted to meet your father’s. You wanted it all so badly that that morning in Marylebone, you, knowing I was working on the American plan, installed a Space Raider on my phone.”
Space Raiders are specialized software that can turn smartphones into someone else’s navigation device. Like a virus, the software will sleep deep in an unsuspecting person’s mobile phone. And when the Raider is activated, it will collect sights, sounds, and GPS positions through the camera, microphone, and Location Services feature—even if the phone appears to be turned off.
The Raider can transmit this information at any time, including real time. So from the comfort of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, Philip would’ve been in on my every move. He would’ve mapped out my every step. And he would’ve heard my every conversation.
“All right,” Philip conceded. He took the phone from my hand. “Your mobile has broadcast all the details of your location to me at regular intervals. I didn’t do it because I needed to persuade Doctor Oujdad to remain in Britain or because I had any interest in Katie deMarco’s subterfuge. I did it because I knew you could be caught in the crosshairs, Jamie. I did it because I care for you.”
“Funny that you mention crosshairs…”
But really, it wasn’t funny at all. I remembered the way Philip had shoved that Russian Makarov in my face. And the way he’d threatened to blow me away.
I plucked the phone from his hand. Turning toward the river, I lobbed it as hard as I could. It sailed over the rail at the sidewalk’s edge and splashed in the turgid water.
“Goodbye, Philip.”
He grasped the crook of my injured arm. “Before you left London, I begged you not to board that plane. I told you I’d fallen in love with you. I meant it.”
I brushed his hand away.
“In the RV and at the Persian restaurant, I toyed with your affections to entice you. But I love you, Jamie. I love you and I want to be with you. We can go anywhere you’d like. We can leave right now. Where do you fancy? Hong Kong? A cottage in the Irish countryside? We’ll go. We belong together, Jamie. We’re two of a kind.”
I couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to hurt one of my dearest friends. And I couldn’t bear to see the kind of man that friend had become.
“That’s the problem, Philip. We’re not two of a kind any longer. Maybe we never were.”
I stood on my toes, brushed a kiss across his lips, and got in my car before any tears caught up with me. Philip didn’t try to stop me. Not this time.
At the mouth of the parking lot, I hit the brakes. I turned to look at my friend one more time. But Philip was already gone.
Chapter 37
At this time of year, New Jersey wasn’t as sunny as St. Croix. And even with its autumn colors, it wasn’t as picturesque as the Irish countryside, either. But after the week I’d had in London and the American West, New Jersey was where I wanted to be.
Once Philip and I parted ways, I’d pointed my XJ8 toward the Garden State. And I’d made good time, too. In the late afternoon, at the edge of a small town buried deep in the Pine Barrens, I reached my destination.
I turned off the winding road, bumped along a long driveway that curved toward a pretty little Cape Cod–style house. Its siding was white and its shutters were black, and its red front door was a welcoming beacon. The front yard was dotted with trees, and in fallen leaves that had gone from green to gold to brown since the last time I’d visited, a black dog lounged beneath one tree in particular.
Her name was Theodore the Labrador, and she was in much better shape than when I’d first met her in the spring. When I parked behind the blue Volvo in the drive, she scrambled up to greet me. Her tongue unfurled like a long, red carpet and her wagging tail was a blur.
With Theodore at my heels, I climbed the steps to the wide front porch. The red door stood open to allow cool breezes to waft through the screen. I heard a televised baseball game blaring full blast and the squeals of two little boys having much too much fun.
I rapped on the door frame. And no one heard me. One boy in a ball cap hit imaginary home runs in slow motion, then doubled up as his own cheering section. The other played at running the bases. Which meant he manically circled his uncle’s chair.
His uncle was Adam Barrett. And Barrett would be in that armchair a while. He’d propped his broken leg on the ottoman, on top of a mountain of pillows.
I knocked again, called, “Mind if I join the party?”
And all the merriment stopped. I’d rarely seen Barrett surprised. But this was one of those times.
He came to his senses, shoved himself higher in his seat. “Not at all. Come in.”
“Mom!” the elder boy screeched. “There’s a lady out here!”
His mother, Barrett’s sister and a doctor in her own right, breezed in from the kitchen, spanking flour from her hands. Elise looked as astonished as her brother to see me. But she didn’t let that stop her from crossing the room to hug me.
“Jamie, it’s been too long! Boys, get your things. It’s time to go home.”
She rounded up her sons despite their moans and groans, shepherded them briskly toward the back door.
“I’ll stop by first thing tomorrow,” she promised Barrett, then hesitated as she flashed a wicked smile my way. “Well, maybe not first thing.”
Before my face could finish its blush, the Volvo started up and drove off.
And Barrett and I were alone.
“Have a seat,” he said.
I figured sitting was a good idea. But when I moved past his chair toward the couch, he caught my good wrist in his hand. In the blink of an eye, he pulled me into his lap.
“Your leg—” I sputtered, shifting my weight to his sound one.
“—is fine.”
But that was an exaggeration.
It had taken a rescue team nearly forty minutes to free Barrett from the chasm in the rock table. His thighbone had split in a spiral fracture. And both shinbones had snapped clean through.
As a result, he was lucky he wasn’t still in the hospital on that remote installation.
Ikaat and her father, who’d both recovered from their ordeal, had promised me they’d sit with him every day. But in the end, Barrett was transferred to Fort Leeds. Relieved of duty and ordered to relax at home, he’d spend at least six weeks in a cast that ran from his toes to his hip.
And he’d be laid up even longer if he needed surgery.
But nothing was the matter with his arms, and he slipped them around my waist.
“I’ve got a broken leg and you’ve got a broken wrist. We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “You know, I think we are.
”
“So, what did the Senator have to say?”
“Not a lot.” But that wasn’t entirely true. “Katie’s sister is dead.”
And every feeling I’d suppressed since coming home from New Mexico snapped to life.
“Adam, I just can’t find the right side of this thing. I’m overjoyed for Ikaat and Armand. She’ll perfect cold fusion, he’ll grow tomatoes, they’ll pay their taxes, and they won’t have to live in fear. But Katie and Annie…”
“You can mourn their loss,” Barrett reminded me. “Just don’t blame yourself for it.”
Well, I’d have to work on that.
“I liked Katie,” I said, “but she really would’ve killed us.”
“You liked Spencer-Dean, too.”
I’d wondered when Barrett would get around to mentioning him.
I told Barrett about Philip’s impromptu visit—and the Space Raider he’d installed on my phone.
“Apparently, I’m a pawn on a chessboard. A means to an end. And an operative out in the cold. Just ask Philip. Or my father.”
“No thanks.” Barrett shook his head, his arms tightening around me. “You’re brilliant. You’re brave. And you’re beautiful.”
And here was the best part: I knew Barrett meant every word he said.
But he was still capable of surprising me.
“Jamie, stay with me tonight.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, wasn’t sure our relationship was ready for it, either.
“I’m tempted,” I admitted, “in spite of your cast and mine. But how would Uncle Adam explain that kind of sleepover to his nephews?”
Barrett smiled—and the earth faltered on its axis. “Give them a few years. They’re going to understand.”
“I booked a room in town.”
“Honey, that’s too far away.”
My laugh got lost as Barrett’s mouth met mine. But before one thing could lead to another, a string of cars and trucks rolled along the drive. I slid from Barrett’s lap, crossed to the screen door. In the twilight, young men and women climbed out of the cars. They paraded through the yard carrying six-packs and pizza boxes and buckets of buffalo wings.
Dressed in sweatshirts and jeans, they still looked like soldiers and I recognized a number of them on sight. These were the members of Barrett’s military police detachment. And they’d come to cheer up their commander.
They streamed into Barrett’s house like a party on the hoof. Someone found a West Coast ball game on the TV. Someone else cranked up a karaoke machine.
I slipped onto the porch when they circled Barrett’s cast and broke out the Sharpies. He already had a red Solo cup in his hand, so he was going to have a great night. Even if it wasn’t the kind of night he’d thought he wanted to have.
As for me, I had a lovely hotel room waiting in my name. I’d hang out the Do Not Disturb sign. And maybe I’d even finish that bubble bath.
To David, now and always.
Acknowledgments
Want to know a secret? When I wrote The Kill Shot, I didn’t think anyone would ever see it. Then along came my fabulous agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, and her team at McIntosh & Otis. She saw it, read it, suggested some important changes, and then recommended it to the folks at Random House. For all of that, I’m grateful.
I’m grateful, too, to Kate Miciak, my mind-reading editor who encouraged me to let Jamie kick things up a notch. (And can I say Jamie likes to kick things up a notch?) I’m sending many thanks to Kate’s team, too, especially Julia Maguire who always has answers for my questions.
I’m also thankful for the continued support of my critique group, the Rockville 8, and of Karen Rose. To friends old and new, here’s a big thank you as well. Sydney, Josh and Jessica, Brooke, and Kathleen and Jaimie, your enthusiasm has meant so much. And speaking of enthusiasts in my corner, thank you to the home front! David, Mom, Dad, Wayne, Alicia, Ed, and Erika, I appreciate you.
Last but not least, I’m thankful for you, reader. It’s your interest in riding along with Jamie that makes her journey possible. Thank you.
About the Author
NICHOLE CHRISTOFF is a writer, broadcaster, and military spouse. The debut novel in her Jamie Sinclair series, The Kill List, is a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense nominee. The Kill Shot is a finalist for Killer Nashville’s Claymore Dagger.
www.nicholechristoff.com
Facebook.com/NicholeChristoff
@NicChristoff
If you enjoyed The Kill Shot, read on for an exciting preview of Jamie Sinclair’s next thrilling adventure in
The Kill Box
by Nichole Christoff
Available from Alibi in June 2015
Chapter 1
“What kind of private investigator wears silk to a sting operation?” Marc Sandoval grumbled.
His fast hands were full of my satiny, charmeuse shirt and I fought to control a shiver as the fabric slipped along my skin. The audio technician at my elbow pressed a palm to the headphones she wore over her pixie cut as if she were listening to a classified communiqué. But she couldn’t fool me. She’d been getting a kick out of the play-by-play between Marc and me all day. And her smug smile said so.
Marc, in the meantime, gave my shirttails another tug. “Damn it, Jamie. You don’t even have room under here for a Kevlar vest.”
“I’ve got room for a listening device,” I reminded him.
And the listening device was all that mattered to me.
Beneath my blouse, taped to my chest, the microphone I wore was so sensitive, it would register my heartbeat if the thing broke away from its adhesive and slipped south along my breastbone. Its chilly wire snaked across my ribs before Marc fished its terminal from the hem of my top. He snapped the end of it into a transmitter. And he clipped the transmitter to my trousers waistband at the small of my back. But even as the tech fired it up for another sound check, Marc’s hands hesitated like he wasn’t quite ready to let me go.
I tossed my dark ponytail over my shoulder, took a seat on the edge of the porcelain sink behind me, and shot him my best don’t-get-sappy-on-me smile. “Come on. This private investigator is a security specialist. You ordered her to look like a woman with both feet on the corporate ladder. Silk shirts are part of that look. Kevlar isn’t.”
And this was true.
Powerful women in Washington, DC, wore elegant underpinnings, finely tailored suits, and exquisite accessories at least six days a week. Thanks to my tailored trousers and silk blouse the color of a politician’s blush, I fit perfectly into that crowd. In fact, I fit in so well, Marc had arrested me when he’d met me two weeks ago.
Because Marc Sandoval was a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
And at the request of my client, I’d posed as a pharmaceutical corporation’s upper-level grunt—ready, willing, and able to bribe the Food and Drug Administration.
That’s how Marc and I came to be holed-up in a closed-but-crowded ladies’ restroom, in the middle of Reagan National Airport, on a Tuesday afternoon in late October. His six-man tactical team, dressed head-to-toe in riot gear, knelt on the floor’s dull and dingy tiles to check over their weapons. And his communications crew fiddled with a bank of portable monitors blocking the bathroom’s row of hand-dryers. Those monitors would give us a bird’s-eye view of our approaching target: a bent FDA official named Stan Liedecker.
Before the advent of the FDA, anyone could make a profit by adding anything to food, drink, or medicine and selling it to the unsuspecting public. And I do mean they could add anything. Opium and arsenic, cocaine and copper turned up in products from cosmetics to children’s cough syrup.
But the Food and Drug Administration put a stop to all that.
Now, drugs are manufactured and marketed under the FDA’s uncompromising eye. Safety has become big business. And no business is bigger than today’s pharmaceutical industry.
Case in point, Hudson Paul, my client and the Chief Ope
rating Officer of a firm called Pharmathon, had money to burn. Located in Tyson’s Corner on the edge of DC’s infamous Beltway, Pharmathon was one of the best and brightest drug companies in the USA. But, as Hudson explained, sitting in a guest chair in my Georgetown office, Pharmathon was also one of the top-grossing pharmaceutical companies in the entire world—with both its thumbs buried in the industry’s $300-billion pie.
Money that large can make people do stupid things. And Hudson had come to me because one of his top employees had done something very stupid indeed. A frustrated vice-president had tried to bribe Liedecker to allow a problematic Alzheimer’s drug to bypass clinical trials—and hit the market untested—just so the competition couldn’t claim all the profits that would be up for grabs while Pharmathon worked out the kinks in its formula.
Hudson found out and fired the guy before any money changed hands. Or any patients stroked-out from taking Pharmathon’s unproven pills. But that didn’t stop the situation from going from bad to worse.
One night, Liedecker, pissed that he never got his payoff, cornered Hudson in Pharmathon’s parking lot—with his hand open and itching. In no uncertain terms, he invited Hudson to pay up so he’d hush up. And if my client didn’t meet the blackmail demand, Liedecker promised to use his FDA clout to shut down Pharmathon in its entirety—and see Hudson Paul charged as the brain behind the vice-president’s attempted bribery.
I took Hudson’s case and posed as his most-trusted employee. Near a hamburger stand on the National Mall, I met with Stan Liedecker to talk terms. But unbeknownst to me, Marc Sandoval had the man under surveillance.
And Marc was damn good at his job.
So he arrested me before I reached my parking spot.
When Marc learned I was PI, he’d thundered like a fallen angel. But after he’d read me the riot act, it dawned on him: Stan Liedecker believed I would buy him off. So if Marc allowed me to give Liedecker his cash, Marc could arrest the bastard with dirt on his hands.
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